Podcasting and Torrents

[owyn]

The download bandwidth problems over the last week made me look into podcasting and torrents. The highest profile problems were the meltdown at Slashdot Review and the problems with the Podshow Strategy cast.

Andrew @ Slashdot is using torrents for his new feed on his new host. Dave @ Evil Genius Chronicles has been using torrents as his default feed for some time. Other podcasters are offering torrent links to individual episodes but Dave and Andrew are the only two that I am aware of that are offering torrent feeds that work. Well, Andrew is having some teething pains but by the time you are reading this they shoule be very close to over.

The good news is that I have been able to subscribe to their feeds cleanly from iPodder using the latest stable release on WXP and the beta 2.0rc3 on Linux. Even better, I was able to do this both with and WITHOUT port forwarding on 6881. It WORKS behind firewalls. Slowly. But it works.

The bad news is that the iPodder current implementation is a pure leech. ie. It can successfully download enclosures but it does not share anything back.

I had not used torrents before because I am basically paranoid. Well, not exactly, you are not really paranoid if people really are out to get you. I keep my network locked down with both hardware NAT and software firewalls.

To do more extensive testing of torrents and podcasting I:
1)Hardened the security on a Mandriva 10.1 Linux system
2)Port forwarded 6881 to that system
3)Decided on Azureus as my bitttorrent client/server. It has the best feature set and, with the 2.3.0 release, even better scalability. It is also available on all the major platforms.
4)Opened an account on Prodigem

The good news is that I was able to add myself in as an additional seed for specific torrents. The bad news is that is not, yet, an automatic process.

I also have problems with Prodigem. There torrent distribution works, and works well, but is proprietary. The torrents payload is a directory containing the mp3 file for an episode. The directory is not a playable entity. Or at least it is not the way I have my systems configured. Could be a my bad.

Still researching and learning.

Opening this topic up for discussion here.

Interested in:
- Are there other podcasts offering working torrent FEEDS?
- Does iPodder torrent support work on the Mac? I don't use Macs.
- What additional clients work out of the box? Specically, which podcatching clients can handle the default EGC feed? I am using that as the gold standard in torrent feeds.

[alissa]

this is probably a dumb question, but wtf is a torrent feed?

[owyn]

this is probably a dumb question, but wtf is a torrent feed?

From WikiPedia BitTorrent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorrent)

A torrent feed is a RSS feed whose enclosures are pointers to torrent files which themselves describe payload files.

eg. the torrent file "filename.mp3.torrent" would normally have a payload of "filename.mp3", ie. the enclosure in a direct mp3 RSS feed.

The following snippet from EGC demonstrates this.

<rss xmlns:egc="http://www.wgbh.org/rss" version="2.0">
<egc:annotation>This is a data file meant to be read by an RSS reader. </egc:annotation>


<channel>
<title>Evil Genius Chronicles</title>
<link>http://www.evilgeniuschronicles.org/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi</link>

<description>A journal of geekery, music and joy</description>
<language>en</language>
<managingEditor>2rcbxmdv802@sneakemail.com</managingEditor>
<lastBuildDate>Thu, 5 May 2005 12:36:53 GMT</lastBuildDate>
<item>
<title>Bittorrent Test File</title>
<link>http://www.evilgeniuschronicles.org/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/audio/egc-bittorrent-test.mp3.torrent</link>

<description>Test file to verify Bittorrent works for the iPodder* client</description>
<pubDate>Mon, 15 Nov 2004 05:22:00 -0500</pubDate>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.evilgeniuschronicles.org/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/audio/egc-bittorrent-test.mp3.torrent</guid>
<author>Dave Slusher 2rcbxmdv802@sneakemail.com </author>
<enclosure url="http://www.evilgeniuschronicles.org/audio/egc-bittorrent-test.mp3.torrent" length="617" type="audio/mpeg"/>
</item>

[gozar]

I've noticed that Leo Laporte uses Coral Cache (http://www.coralcdn.org/). Has anyone else gone this route? How well does it work.

[owyn]

I took a look at Coral Cache and then checked Laporte's feed.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/kfi

When I did a view source I could not see the Coral suffix on the enclosures.

Using Coral

Taking advantage of Coral CDN is simple. Just append

.nyud.net:8090

to the hostname of any URL,

<item>
<title>KFI Tech Guy Sunday April 24,</title>
<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/kfi?m=1</link>
<description>KFI Tech Guy Sunday April 24, - KFI April 2005 - Leo Laporte</description>
<pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:00:00 -0500</pubDate>

<enclosure url="http://leoville.tv/airchecks/20050424.mp3" length="38422405" type="audio/mpeg" />
<feedburner:origLink>http://leoville.tv/airchecks/20050424.mp3</feedburner:origLink>
</item>

[Dave]

I don't know of any iPodder-like programs that offer torrent support for podcasts. Videora (http://www.videora.com/en-us/) offers RSS+torrent support, but it's geared toward video. The only RSS+torrent feed I'm using now is one I'm using through Mozilla T-bird, and while it's easy enough to play with, it's not quite automatic as iPodder. (And it gets me my Doctor Who fix, so I'm not complaining...)

As far as setting up enclosures on your own server... well, I'm just another LibSyn user, so I doubt I could be much help there.

-Dave

[lerhaupt]

I also have problems with Prodigem. There torrent distribution works, and works well, but is proprietary. The torrents payload is a directory containing the mp3 file for an episode. The directory is not a playable entity. Or at least it is not the way I have my systems configured. Could be a my bad.

Owyn - thanks for emailing me so I could join in this thread. Prodigem does not create proprietary torrents. Torernts by spec can either be a single file or a directory with multiple files in that directory. Prodigem uses the latter. The problem is that the various ipodder-type programs out there don't know what to do with these directories. I have attempted to contact the guys who write their software, but haven't gotten a response. The bottom line is that all the information necessary to find the mp3 file is actually in human-readable form in the .torrent file that you get from Prodigem. This means that ipodder just needs a little more smarts and it would be able to automatically pull it from the torrent payload and transfer it onto your ipod. Maybe we can get their developers to notice this request so we can get ths fixed?

Gary

[owyn]

Gary. Thanks for replying.

Proprietary was a bad choice of words. Different would have been better.

I will raise an enhancment request at Lemon Support. And look into the code as well.

I understand why you package by folder at your end. It would be usefull however if you could expose a torrent for the files in addition to the folder. If you did that you would work with iPodder and any other client which supports Torrent and queing to Players.

This would also make the download directory contents the same for .torrent and direct .mp3 feeds.

[lerhaupt]

There are a number of reasons why I don't use single file torrents. The most important of these is that I want a LICENSE.txt file to travel with all torrents which go out and this automatically forces me to use a directory. Lemon et all should be able to handle this anyway since the formatting of a .torrent file is b-encoded, and this open format specifies the names of all files located within the torrent and the directory name that the torrent will save its content to. They just need a little extra logic to look in subdirs.

Gary

[owyn]

I just checked Slashdot's feed.

<item>
<title>SDR2005-05-04 Slashdot Review</title>
-
<link>
http://downloadradio.org/shows/SDR2005-05-04.mp3.torrent
</link>
<enclosure url="http://downloadradio.org/shows/SDR2005-05-04.mp3.torrent" length="66963" type="application/x-bittorrent"/>
</item>

http://downloadradio.org/ is definitely Podcast and Torrent friendly.

[owyn]

RFC

Initial data indicates that many listeners to the mp3 feed ,which I had to discontinue at least temporarily are getting left out, just as I had feared.

If you know someone that had been listening to SDR, please ask if the move to Bittorrent worked for them, and if it did not, please leave a comment that might explain their situation - firewall, work environment that blocks P2P, and so forth. Sometimes fresh bits for the latest edition of the podcast client might help.

One listener wrote in to explain that he’s not able to listen at all because his employer has both an anti-P2P policy and active blocking of P2P traffic. In addition, the company provided virus package fires off when he tries to run bittorrent clients on his laptop even when he is not going through the company network.

My thanks of course to Peter Yorke, of Yorke Systems and DownloadRadio.org has been tweaking scripts nightly to tighten down the timeliness of the delivery - and thanks also to those of you who are downloading manually and leaving up your client to allow them to continue to seed.

I suspect there are port issues in all sorts of combination of routers, consumer router boxes, ISP filters and so forth.

I had two lengthy conversations with hosting companies today, seeking a way to provide at least some form of podcast in MP3 form. This weekend, a lot of work needs to be done concerning the Listener Underwriting Page and Donation buttons.

My apologies -I’ve had to turn the register switch on at the site, due to comment spam.

Here’s the question:
How would you organize the package of delivery modes for Slashdot Review, and why ? If you have some ideas, please leave a comment not only on bittorrent issues, but on types of problems that you might anticipate if we have to move to several parallel feeds .

Answers to the 6.5 questions that you may have always had concerning SDR: PodcastAlley.com

Today’s SDR and previous programs are available at DownloadRadio.org .
Everything is not well at Slashdot Review (http://slashdotreview.com/)

Andy is wrestling with the problems that result from a successful podcast.

PS: I have registered on his site but, as yet I have not been able to post a comment. If anyone knows the trick, please let me know.

PPS: I have left seeds up for SDR. Anyone else who can help out should.

[owyn]

HowTo Open File for Seeding

I use iPodder to download subscriptions but still want to contribute back to the BitTorrent network. iPodder is a pure leech. I use Azureus 2.3.0 to feed back. The process of feeding back is called seeding.

The actual procedure involved is straight forward but a little bit difficult to figure out the first time. Here is what works for me.

Pre-requisites
1) Make sure that port 5881 is open on the system you are using to seed.
2) Make sure that Azureus is not blocked by your software firewall.
3) Set an upper limit on how much of your uplink you want to make available to BitTorrent. I personally limit it to approximatel 60%, ie. 30KB/s of a 50KB/s uplink.

The Procedure
1) Start Azureus
2) In the Azureus menu navigate to File -> Open -> Torrent File... (For seeding)
3) In the "Choose the Torrent File) dialog
- Browse to the directory containing the .torrent you want to seed. This will normally be the iPodder download directory for the show.
- Choose the .torrent file
- In the "Choose the save data path" browse to and select the same directory, ie. the one containing both the .torrent and the .mp3 payload file.
4) Azureus should now automatically add the file to the bottom "Seeding" pane.
5) Right click the new file and from the context menu select, Advanced -> Set Download Speed. Select whatever speed you are comfortable with. I personally limit any seed to a max of half of the amount I have given to BitTorrent as a whole, ie. 15KB/s (50% of 30KB/s).

This process is far from automatic but it does work.

[gozar]

I took a look at Coral Cache and then checked Laporte's feed.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/kfi

When I did a view source I could not see the Coral suffix on the enclosures.


I know it was there, honest! :-)

It looks like it maybe wasn't working for him and he switched.

[SFEley]

I took a look at Coral Cache and then checked Laporte's feed.

I know it was there, honest! :-)
It looks like it maybe wasn't working for him and he switched.

Or possibly he's doing it behind the scenes, using HTTP rewrite rules in the directory where he hosts his files. (This makes for better logging, as every request will hit your site at least once before getting sent off to Coral.)

[Daniel]

Loads of iPodders support torrents, iPodder, Doppler, Nimiq, RSSRadio, iPodderx, all of them really.

The latest RSSRadio allows you to seed after download, and Doppler just calls your installed torrent client which stays seeding afterwards. Not sure on the others.

No podcaster should worry about going to BitTorrent, its going to "just work" for most podcast client users. What you need to sort out is the "visit the site and click on the mp3" listeners.

The torrents must contain a single file though for most of these i think.

Daniel - RSSRadio
http://www.dorada.co.uk

[leolaporte]

I use mod_rewrite to Coralize MP3 files in my feeds:


Header append X-Coral-Control "redirect-home"
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^CoralWebPrx
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !^coral-no-serve
RewriteRule ^(.*mp3)$ http://thisweekintech.com.nyud.net:8090/twit/$1 [R,L]


That's why you don't see the Coralized URL in the page source. It happens after the HTML.

Coral works ok but I suck so much bandwidth from them that I almost always go over quota when the podcasts first come out. It's supposed to re-route traffic to me, but it's not always working.

I do think Coral is a VERY good choice for podcasters who can't afford the bandwidth bill (or want to avoid surprises). One of the reasons I use it and bang on it so hard is that I want to help Michael Freedman (Mr. Coral) get it working for other podcasters.

I also use BitTorrent, but that's for the more sophisticated users. Only iPodderX handles BitTorrent transparently. BT has other issues, too. In the long run I think Coral will be easier for users and podcasters alike.

[allthewhile]

Hey can you explain to me (someone stupid with coding) how mod rewrite works and how you can use coral with it?

[leolaporte]

I'll try - it's kind of voodoo.

First you need to understand how Coral (http://coralcdn.com) works. Coral is a content delivery network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_Delivery_Network). By adding .nyud.net:8090 to any URL you can use Coral to distribute your content.



For example, by turning thisWEEKinTECH.com/twit/TWiT0004.mp3 into thisWEEKinTECH.com.nyud.net:8090/twit/TWiT0004.mp3 you send your users to the Coral network at nyud.net. (They use port 8090 instead of the normal http port 80 for historical reasons, but hope to switch to the standard port soon. That's good because firewalls often block traffic on port 8090.)

The Coral network consists of hundreds of machines distributed worldwide. These machines will cache your podcast (or web page or anything else) and serve it to your users directly eliminating the bandwidth drain on you and giving your users fast local servers to access.

You can Coralize URLs by hand by just adding the .nyud.net:8090 right after the TLD (.com, .net, etc.). Or you can modify your feed generator to do it. That's how I was doing it for a while - and it's probably the easiest way to implement this. For example, if you use the Dircaster (http://www.shadydentist.com/wordpress/software/dircaster) php script to generate your RSS feed you can replace the following lines:

$rootMP3URL = "http://" . $_SERVER[HTTP_HOST] . $_SERVER[REQUEST_URI];
$rootMP3URL = substr($rootMP3URL, 0, strrpos ($rootMP3URL, "/"));


with

$rootMP3URL = "http://leoville.tv.nyud.net:8090/airchecks";

and the RSS feed will generate Coralized URLs.

But the most sneaky way to do it is to use the amazing Apache mod_rewrite (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_rewrite.html) module. This module is used for all sorts of interesting things, like changing URLs into human readable form, permanent redirection, and so on. To use it, it must be turned on in your Apache httpd.conf file. (See the mod_rewrite (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_rewrite.html) manual for details on that. You'll have to get your web host to do it unless you have root privileges. This is not for the faint of heart... or inexperienced web masters.

If mod_rewrite is on, you can put an .htaccess file in the directory containing your podcasts that will translate URLs into a Coral URL on the fly using the RewriteCond and RewriteRule directives. This is the code block I use (I've added the line numbers - don't use them):


1: RewriteEngine on
2: RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^CoralWebPrx
3: RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !^coral-no-serve
4: RewriteRule ^(.*mp3)$ http://thisweekintech.com.nyud.net:8090/twit/$1 [R,L]


Line 1 turns on the mod_rewrite engine.

Line 2 checks to see if the request for the file is from Coral - if it is it ignores it to prevent endless loops. In English it says "If the HTTP request does not come from CoralWebPrx".

Line 3 checks to see if the request is coming back to us because Coral has failed (if it does it adds ?coral-no-serve to the URL). In that case we don't want to Coralize the URL either. In English it says "If the URL does not end with coral-no-serve"

Line 4 does the actual URL rewriting. If the previous two conditions are satisfied (the request is not from Coral itself, nor is it a failed Coral request), then do the rewrite. The rewriting rule uses regular expressions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions) to define the rewrite. In this case it looks for a file ending in .mp3 - if it finds one it returns the Coralized URL with the filename at the end. (Regular expressions are devilishly difficult. If you've never used grep or Perl regular expressions read Jeffrey Friedl's Mastering Regular Expressions (http://regex.info/) or ask a local expert.)

This is all black magic, and only works with Apache. I'm sure IIS and other web servers have a similar mechanism, but I have no idea what it might be. See the Coral Wiki (http://wiki.coralcdn.org/wiki.php/Main/Servers) for more information.

Good luck! :D

[allthewhile]

Thanks, very informative. I was wondering how it worked, and you cleared it all up!

:P

[owyn]

Leo: Thanks for the info. I somehow missed it the first time.

And now for the news, iPodder Lemon 2.1 (http://ipodder.sourceforge.net/update/iPodder21.php) is out and has been tested succesfully with every BitTorrent feed I knew of.

In particular, it has been tested with:

This Week in Tech
Slashdot Review
Evil Genius Chronicles
The Roadhouse Podcast

Reliability has been improved with sync to tracker. Some seeding does occur during download. Due to architectural issues, seeding after download complete is not currently supported. That still requires using a separate BT client to seed the torrent.

BT enclosures (payloads) must be individual files. Files in folders is not supported.

Warning: If the option to "Change Genre in iTunes" is selected in iPodder then the torrent payload file can no longer be seeded back to the BT network. The change in genre changes the file hash.

[sydbarrett]

my question

was that the real leo laporte, famed tv personality, radio host, podcast guru, and amway distributor?

or some leo laporte want-to-be? (there are so many!)

Later podPeople

[owyn]

my question

was that the real leo laporte, famed tv personality, radio host, podcast guru, and amway distributor?

or some leo laporte want-to-be? (there are so many!)

Later podPeople

Hey. If he was not the real thing then it does not really matter. He got the facts right.

[owyn]

Well AC has blessed BT in his Gnomedex 5 keynote.

http://mp3.dailysourcecode.podshow.com/DSC-2005-06-25.mp3

"Podshow will be using BT".

Could have something to do with approx 100,000 downloads of DSC per episode and his $350/day bandwidth bill.

[SFEley]

Well AC has blessed BT in his Gnomedex 5 keynote.
http://mp3.dailysourcecode.podshow.com/DSC-2005-06-25.mp3
"Podshow will be using BT".

Well, that's good news insofar as it implies that iTunes will likely have BitTorrent support. (I can't imagine him doing it otherwise.)

Now, whether's really good BitTorrent support -- which none of the major podcatchers have right now -- is another question...

[owyn]

[quote=owyn]Well AC has blessed BT in his Gnomedex 5 keynote.
http://mp3.dailysourcecode.podshow.com/DSC-2005-06-25.mp3
"Podshow will be using BT".

Well, that's good news insofar as it implies that iTunes will likely have BitTorrent support. (I can't imagine him doing it otherwise.)
I would not bet on it for iTunes 4.9. Maybe 4.10.

[quote]Now, whether's really good BitTorrent support -- which none of the major podcatchers have right now -- is another question...
Yep. But it is getting better with each release.

[dcolanduno]

Correct me if I am wrong.

Wouldn't bit-torrent 'slow' you down if you don't have a lot of listeners? I've always been under the impresion that unless there are like always another 5-10 people online downloading or hosting your file at a time, Bit-Torrent seems painful.

Yea, it works well for shows with 100k listeners, like DSC. But how about for 6,000 listener shows like mine?

D.

[SFEley]

Wouldn't bit-torrent 'slow' you down if you don't have a lot of listeners? I've always been under the impresion that unless there are like always another 5-10 people online downloading or hosting your file at a time, Bit-Torrent seems painful.
It depends. If you have one or more servers on high-speed connections serving your file, then no, it shouldn't be that slow. It's only when there are a small number of seeds and all of those seeds are on home DSL connections or other asymmetric setups that BitTorrent gets sluggish. There's nothing inherently slow about it.

Yea, it works well for shows with 100k listeners, like DSC. But how about for 6,000 listener shows like mine?
Again, it depends. If the majority of your listeners are all using BitTorrent-supporting clients, then you could do quite well with it for first-day scenarios. Let's say you have 4,000 listeners who download your show from BT-enabled podcatchers in the first 24 hours. If those are evenly spread (an unlikely simplifying assumption), you'll have 166 people each hour trying to download your file. If it takes each one of them ten minutes, you'll have a swarm of 27 at any given time, even if none of them hang around to seed. (Which is, alas, the biggest problem with today's podcatching clients.)

That could easily take most of the bandwidth stress off of your system on the first day. BT is unique in that the more popular your show is, the better it is for your bandwidth. After the first day, when demand is just trickling in, it's less useful. But if you're in a position to keep a seed up on a good connection, you're still no less off than you were when you started.

Those are the good things about it. The main drawback is that not everybody can use BitTorrent (and those who can don't always know about opening up ports in their router, etc.), so you have to have a second link (and maybe a second feed) to all your files. That adds complexity, and complexity can confuse people and stop them from looking at you. This alone is the major reason why I'm not using BitTorrent or Coral for Escape Pod (http://escape.extraneous.org) right now. I thought very carefully about both of them. However, both technologies shut out a few people, and offering multiple links is confusing. If Libsyn fails to manage my files well in the future, maybe I'll consider them. Right now I just don't need them, and I'd rather keep things simple for my listeners.

[dcolanduno]

Pretty much my situation here Eley...

[owyn]

Correct me if I am wrong.

Wouldn't bit-torrent 'slow' you down if you don't have a lot of listeners? I've always been under the impresion that unless there are like always another 5-10 people online downloading or hosting your file at a time, Bit-Torrent seems painful.

Solutions like Libsyn are the most economical and easy way to get started. But, it is likely that Libsyn will be forced to start offerig BT trackers as a way of preserving their own bandwidth. They may even change their pricing. Unlimited BT, limited direct, as a way of being able to continue to host larger podcasts.

Rob @ Podcast411 will be providing some tutorials on using BT as a podcaster. Almost science, but a bit of voodoo can be involved.

Tony @ The Roadhouse (http://www.roadhousepodcast.com) recently set up a BT feed (http://www.roadhousepodcast.com/?p=64#more-64). As noted in Tony's comments PodcastTorrent.com (http://podcasttorrent.com/) was a big part of getting it working.

Yea, it works well for shows with 100k listeners, like DSC. But how about for 6,000 listener shows like mine?
6000. Wow fast rampup. :skeptical: but well deserved if true.

BT can be just as fast direct download. It depends on the number and speed of the seeders. I hosted several seeds for a while as a way of monitoring what was happening. There were times I was the first or second seed for the swarm. Results showed that while I was providing 30KBs to the swarm total transfers in the swarm were 2 - 10 times that. ie. The other "downloaders" in the swarm were providing some seeding back. Usually I was something like priority 1000 in larger swarms.

Slow is relative. Before the Raven'n'Blues podcast moved to Libsyn it could take 1 - 3 days to download an episode. Annoying but not fatal, I got my blues fix on Tuesday instead of Sunday.

What that means is that it is VITAL to get your listeners to subscribe. Computers and podcatch clients are built to chug away in background, managing the downloads, and resuming / recovering as needed.

It does not bother me if it takes 5 minutes or 5 hours to download something. I will listen to it when it is complete. And I am not being held up.

There is a major problem with BT. The protocol is frequently blocked by corporate firewalls. As Andy @ Slashdot saw, a lot of his audience could not get his show when it was only offered as BT.

Bottomline. Yes it can take longer to complete a BT download than to complete a direct download. But, do you really care if it works reliably and takes no longer than 2 - 3 times direct speeds. It is not your time, and, if subscribed, it is not the listeners time.

[dcolanduno]

6000. Wow fast rampup. :skeptical: but well deserved if true.

Most of my listeners come from outside the podcasting community. But, yes, about 5500 - 6200 downloads per episode, after about 7-10 days.

That is using that wierd Libsyn Calculation... LES?

Oddly, my stats go funny... like 500-2000 downloads the first day. Then an average of 400-500 per day for 5-7 days after, and then a trickle of 100-200 days until the eventual decay. When I look back, the totals cap around 6000 average. I think it might be because I get A LOT of 'direct' downloads from folks that don't use podcatchers. Folks from outside the 'podcast' mindset.

It used to be higher until this last week. But I think they, at libsyn, and/or iPodderX fixed a problem, since now, iPodderX is no longer 75% of my downloads, it actually was beat by iPodder (lemon) this last episode.

Rob @ Podcast411 will be providing some tutorials on using BT as a podcaster. Almost science, but a bit of voodoo can be involved.

Tony @ The Roadhouse recently set up a BT feed. As noted in Tony's comments PodcastTorrent.com was a big part of getting it working.


Cool, I heard Rob talk about that last night on his 411 from the end of MicroSoftDex, I mean PodDex, I mean... Gnomedex... ;)

[owyn]

Which is, alas, the biggest problem with today's podcatching clients.
Agreed. But, it is a recognized problem. Lot's of "discussion" about how best to handle seeding.

After the first day, when demand is just trickling in, it's less useful. But if you're in a position to keep a seed up on a good connection, you're still no less off than you were when you started.
Definitely. I noticed with Slashdot that after a seed had been up for about a week it was almost never used. Probably similar results for direct mp3.

Right now I just don't need them, and I'd rather keep things simple for my listeners.
Agreed. Simple is best until you need it something more complex. But, it is good to know that work is underway to reduce the complexity for when you will need it.